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over to technology, which as many industry experts agree, would
make driving a whole lot safer. After all, computers don’t speed, go
through red lights, drive under the inf luence or tailgate.
In Australia, driverless trucks are already in use in the mining
industry and in Europe and the US, autonomous trucks and cars
have been tested on motorways and racked up many safe kilometres.
It is rare for human error not to be implicated in motor vehicle
accidents these days, so more and more we are becoming reliant
on technology. The technologies that enable a vehicle to recognise
unusual objects and react accordingly in unfamiliar situations pose
significant research challenges. To facilitate this, future automobiles
will be armed with a veritable arsenal of sensors, cameras, radar,
sonar, light detection and GPS technology to gain total vision of
their surroundings, which will enable them to determine road
width, other vehicles and various street signs and roadblocks.
They will be driverless, in that they can independently interpret
the surrounding environment and handle routine driving with
relative ease, but they can be manually overridden if necessary by a
‘ driver’ who otherwise does not have a great deal else to do.
Anything run by digital data is always at risk of malfunction.
Accelerators, brakes and steering in modern automobiles are
computer-controlled so if a hacker can gain access to the Pentagon
how easy would it be to hijack your car?
A major challenge will be the regulation of driverless cars and how
this technology is managed on our roads. There is a minefield of
concerns to consider, such as insurance liabilities – which would be
answerable in the event of an accident; the vehicle’s occupant, the
vehicle’s manufacturer or the software company?
Cars have been thinking for themselves for some time now and
over the years the human input to driving has been eroded to the
point that full automation seems a natural progression.
Google is at the forefront of autonomous development, with their
cars travelling more than million kilometres on public roads to
date in the US without an accident. And traditional manufacturers
such as Audi, Mercedes, Volvo and Toyota are well advanced with
autonomous development.
Technology cannot be stopped. We just need to make sure that it is
safe, affordable and legal. Like it or not, most industry experts agree
that autonomous vehicles will be on our roads within the next three
to five years. Yesterday’s fantasy is about to become today’s reality.
Who’s
driving this car?
Paul Granston discovers it’s not
Stevie Wonder – so, who?
Picture this. You climb into your car and head off to work.
But instead of negotiating the tedium of traffic and delays,
your time is spent making phone calls, texting and browsing the
morning paper. And it’s legal!
The thought of a driverless vehicle would sound abhorrent to most
of us but many of the autonomous technologies necessary to realise
this are already in place in modern vehicles today – adaptive cruise
control, parking assistance, collision-avoidance radar, lane departure
warning and blind spot detection. The next logical evolutionary
step would be to do away with us (as drivers) and pass the baton
DECEMBER 2015 / JANUARY 2016 Journeys 27
LIFE ON THE MOVE